


In Laws

by Maldoror_Chant



Category: One Piece
Genre: CP9 - Freeform, Crack, Crossdressing, Humor, Kaku has a bad day, M/M, OC brother of a OP character, so mentions of dubious ethics and assassination and murder and violence etc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-22 19:18:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13173489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maldoror_Chant/pseuds/Maldoror_Chant
Summary: While dealing with the evacuation of a World Government island ahead of a pirate attack, Kaku runs into a familiar face. Sort of familiar - well, he has met the man once before, but Kaku also happens to be sleeping with a guy wearing the same face so you could also sayveryfamiliar - though Lucci goes for dark suits and murder while his twin Marco prefers sequin dresses and chorus music- you know what, it's a long story and Kaku is dealing with several emergencies and he does not have the bandwidth to deal with- oh...their mom is here too...that's just great...





	In Laws

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is for emeraldyuna, hinas_otaku and sasori_katana. It's not just dedicated to them, it's FOR them, as the only three people who are likely to enjoy it ^^; Aside from the crack addicts among you...You see, it's a Marco fic! For those of you who haven't had the ~~surreal~~ opportunity to meet him yet, Marco is the creation of emeraldyuna and hinas_otaku to try to get over their trauma at stumbling onto one (or several?) Japanese sites consistently putting Lucci in drag. Yeah, CP9's Lucci. In drag. With sequins and bitch boots and leather and feathers and more sequins and a Mardis Gras outfit and yeah...Thus was Marco born, Lucci's cross-dressing cabaret act of a twin brother, because an explanation to such brain-bendiness had to be found. And then sasori_katana got the infection and wrote _fics_ involving him and twenty-eight days later zombies invaded London and I wrote this. 
> 
> Fic can be read standalone as long as you get the basic concept (aka, Lucci has a cross-dressing cabaret-singing twin and they do not get along). But to get the full flavor of the fic, do read sasori's fics first [here](http://community.livejournal.com/onepieceyaoi/772274.html) and [here](http://community.livejournal.com/onepieceyaoi/783820.html), if you're not really using that sanity and want to trade it in for the pleasure of seeing Lucci and a couple other members of CP9 getting tortured by his twin brother.

The evacuation had turned into a nightmare, yet despite all the shouting, Kaku caught the sound of his name being called. Which was interesting since nobody on this island should _know_ his name. Even the Navy brass he was talking to only knew him as 'Mister CP9 Agent', first name 'Yes Sir'. CP9's new charter had replaced the word 'assassination' with 'counter-espionage' but someone smart had still seen the necessity to keep the word 'covert' in there somewhere.

Kaku looked around at the throng beyond the barrier of Marines and, for a baffled second, wondered what Lucci was doing here. But the notion was idiotic; Lucci would not let himself get caught in a seething mob one step from a riot, he would never stoop to looking _pleased_ at seeing Kaku and he would certainly not be standing with his back turned to the burly Marines swinging a truncheon at his head.

The stick connected with a thud. The Marines glared at the hand that had intercepted his cudgel, then at the long-nosed man who'd so suddenly appeared between him and his target. "Huh?!"

"No need for that, Sergeant," Kaku said, pushing the weapon away. "Marco? What the blazes are you doing here? You should have evacuated days ago."

Marco paused in the act of giving the Sergeant who'd nearly brained him a haughty look. "We-" 

"Just a minute!" snarled the Marine. "These two broke the cordon!"

"It's okay, they're with me," Kaku said, leaning sideways to get a glimpse of the woman Marco was protecting. Could this be-

"And who the hell are _you_?" The question came with a hard poke of the truncheon. Apparently the Sergeant wasn't impressed with Kaku's tracksuit. 

"I'm with Cipher Pol."

"I don't give a damn!" barked the Marines, even though he'd been the one to ask the question. "This train is for government personnel only. No civilians allowed!"

Kaku had two ways of dealing with this. With Marco watching, it was going to be option two.

The Sergeant jumped as the man he'd been repeatedly poking with his cudgel materialized at his side and said in his ear: "Sergeant, please do start giving a damn. If you want to know why, take a look over my shoulder at the lieutenant, the captain and the commander of the fourth fleet whom I was talking to before you tried to brain my friend and who are all looking at you with 'that poor bastard is dead meat' expressions. Now fortunately for you, I'm a professional and don't indulge in the pleasure of hurting annoying people, so why don't you take yourself and the duty you're so fond of and go perform it elsewhere."

That problem out of the way, Kaku turned his back to the fleeing Sergeant and considered Marco once more. Marco was dressed in a brilliant black tuxedo with satin white shirt and red bowtie, all of which were rumpled now. Oddly enough, he looked more different from his twin in this getup than he did in a cocktail dress. In a dress, Marco radiated the towering self-confidence that could drive even Lucci to bay; today, in that rumpled suit, he looked normal. Well, almost normal. 

"I'm glad I spotted you, sweetie," said Marco, with a theatrical hand pressed to his brow that clashed majestically with the suit. "That gorilla was making life dicey."

"Why are you still here?"

"Ah. We should have left on Tuesday, true, but then Mother had an Episode. Oh, you haven't met Mother yet, have you. Mother, may I introduce Kaku who just saved our lives and who happens to be your other son's-"

"-colleague," Kaku cut in quickly, since that sentence could only end in disaster.

"Yes, that's what I was about to say, Lucci's _colleague_ ," said Marco in such archly suggestive tones there could be nobody within earshot who hadn't figured it out. 

"Haha," said Kaku, keeping his composure by the skin of his teeth. "Hello, Mrs- um-"

" _Madame,_ " said the small figure in a dress so far out of fashion it had gained the perspective of history, incongruous silk and antique velvet in the middle of a soon-to-be warzone.

For the most part there wasn't much resemblance. Madame (presumably Madame Rob, though Kaku wasn't going to dare make any assumptions at this point) was small, reaching only Marco's chest, a little plump, brown hair going grey, brown eyes. But she was, without a single doubt, 'Mother'. This was the gene pool from which Marco had inherited his flair for looking majestic and glamorous in fur and heavy make-up, and where Lucci had picked up his ability to make one feel like a complete non-entity with just one glance. 

"Pleased to meet you," said Kaku faintly. He'd grown a hide as thick as Enies Lobby's new sea-walls when it came to Lucci's stare, but it was unnerving getting it from this small specimen. 

" _Mother_ , please, he probably just saved our lives." 

"Hmf." Madame gave the near-riot around them a disdainful look that showed nothing but contempt for these panicking peasants, the commoner Marines, the approaching forces of Blackbeard, the opposing forces of the Pirate King that were aiming to pound up same, and all showing their total lack of manners by inconveniently choosing her home island for their showdown. Kaku wondered if they could leave her here instead of the Fourth Fleet and see if she'd be more effective in defending World Government property. It was obvious this tiny woman couldn't throw a punch to save her life, but she might be able to cow all approaching forces with the power of her Total Disapproval. 

"So you couldn't leave on Tuesday because your mom was sick- um, sorry, Madame, I meant..." He'd just been given a grand old haughty stare. 

"She had an Episode," said Marco, rolling his eyes. "I was still talking her around on Wednesday when somebody broke into her house. There's been looting here and there all week, that's why I moved back in until we could leave. They stole our papers, the ones which appeared to come from my brother but that I know damn well came from Kalifa instead."

"Um, Lucci's on a long-term project that-...wait. Somebody stole your passes?"

"Yes, and they made a frightful mess of Mother's mahogany desk, wrenching open the locked drawer."

Prickles ran up Kaku's spine. "Did they take anything else?"

"The silverware in the same drawer, that's all. It's not like we had much money to steal, but they missed a roomful of antiques on the way out the house. Amateur looters, don't you think?"

The prickles tackled the back of Kaku's neck. "Were you two at home?"

"Mother was sleeping in her bedroom while they were vandalizing our downstairs, which may have helped convince her it was time to leave," Marco added in a stage whisper the tiny woman at his side affected not to hear. "I was out working, our last night before the cabaret closed. We called it The Final Revue Before The Flaming Finale, which is a hackneyed name Gary came up with for-"

Marco hadn't been home. It might have saved both their lives. Kaku interrupted the details of the revue, grabbed Marco by the arm that wasn't carrying luggage, gently pushed at Madame's shoulder and manoeuvred them both towards the train. "Let's get you two on board."

"Oh, yes. Say, Kaku, would Jyabura be with you?"

"No," Kaku answered shortly. The break-in had been Wednesday night, but the tickets had been for Tuesday, so whoever had found out there would be secret high-priority government passes for two civilians in that particular house would have missed the designated boat. But with those papers the thief could talk his way on to one of the Navy ships heading straight back to Mariejoie, like the one sailing soon with the island's governor aboard, and this was potentially Not Good. If Kaku's instincts were right - and they were right, he damn well knew it - then maybe his superiors hadn't been wrong in sending him to this riot zone after all...

The CP8 guard in front of the carriage door leapt out of the way without a challenge. Marco, who'd not said another word, threw up the valise he was carrying, quickly climbed the stairs and reached back for his mother's hand. 

Madame gathered her antique and lightly moth-eaten mink stole around her, gave the opaque windows of the carriage a significant glances, and said: "Is this wagon second class?" 

" _Mother_ -"

How soon would the governor be sailing? Kaku wondered as he said politely: "No, Madame, it's first class. In fact it's better than first class, it's reserved for our organization, it will only have the three of us in it and a bunch of attendants to order around, you'll be much further from the riff-raff than on a boat, trust me," and then he picked up Mama Rob by her tiny shoulders, lifted her up open mouth and all to a startled Marco, turned on his heels and disappeared into the crowd like a ghost at daybreak. 

"Right," said Madame after him in a voice that was entirely self-assured and aristocratic despite the shocked pause that had preceded it, "as long as _that_ is understood." A small moral victory Kaku was happy to concede if it spared him a Look later on, or a complaint of brutality to her son (the one who didn't wear a dress). Though both eventualities were better than slow death by paperwork, which was what would happen if assassins from the revolution splattered the governor on Kaku's watch. 

\---

 

"Right this way, sir," said the Lieutenant. Since CP9's revelation to the world a couple of years ago, people tended to react to their existence and their robust approach to justice in a broad spectrum of ways, from fear and loathing to fawning admiration. The Lieutenant was on the latter end of the scale. From the way he was schmoozing up to the man he thought was Lucci's brother, he probably had Cipher Pol management ambitions once his tour of duty elapsed. 

The man who was holding Rob Marco's pass said: "Thank you, Lieutenant. Tell me-" and that's when Kaku struck him from behind. Kaku considered himself an honourable fighter who knew about fair play, politeness and not interrupting people while they were speaking, but as a CP9 agent, he'd learned to say 'stuff it'. 

The blow sent the fake Marco slamming against a wall. He picked himself up and faced his attacker in a move so quick even Kaku was impressed. 

"Damn," Kaku sighed as he recognized the man's face from a select list of Wanted posters, "you're just a hired gun. I was hoping to catch a big fish. Are you going to surrender, or are you going to waste my time? I warn you, I have a train to catch."

"Then I hope your next of kin can get a refund on the ticket," the killer said, cracking his knuckles. Ripples of Devil Fruit power tainted the air around him. 

"Huh-uh, I had a feeling. Fine. I just wasted three days in the middle of unravelling chaos trying to track down this island's revolutionary cell, I guess I can waste three minutes on you."

"Waste anything you want," sneered the assassin, hands pierced with elongating talons, "I'll tell you nothing."

"I hadn't actually asked any questions," Kaku pointed out. "A trigger man like you won't know your employer's identity, or how they infiltrated our agency's information system far enough to learn about the existence of the man you're impersonating - not very well, incidentally, Marco usually favors a different color and style. He wouldn't be caught dead in a three-piece cotton suit, much less a conservative charcoal one."

"Is he the one who warned you? I knew we should have killed him." The aforementioned charcoal suit ripped up the back as the man morphed. A circle of agitated Marines had formed and a lot of guns were being waved about. Kaku made a note to finish this quickly before the idiots hurt themselves. 

"Why didn't you kill him?" Kaku asked, professional curiosity overtaking him for a moment. "That'd have made the switch that much more unlikely to be discovered."

"I would have killed him for his brother's sake alone, but he never came home," grumbled his opponent, feathers rustling. Eagle Devil Fruit, swell. Good thing Kaku had Geppou on his side, because giraffes were not known for their aerodynamics. "I only had that one night to stake out the place and there was just the old dame and some bloody big broad in a feather outfit who- why are you laughing at me?!"

"Sorry, sorry. Well, it's reassuring to know the revolution's spies in this place aren't all that good. I'll catch them on the next island over in all likelihood. Now there's really just one question I have to ask you, and it's only a formality imposed by a policy shift: Are you going to resist arrest?"

The Zoan launched himself into the air, but he wasn't fleeing. "You fool, you should have taken me out while my back was turned. You might have stood a chance...giraffe-boy."

"No need to get personal, and I'll take that as a 'yes, I want you to kill me seven ways to Sunday'. Good. My charter says I have to make a reasonable attempt to arrest you, but since you're obviously going to be stubborn about it..." 

 

 

The sea-train had already pulled out of the station. Kaku ran along the wharf, shot through the air in three explosive steps and landed on the roof of the last wagon. Two minutes later he slipped in through an open window of the reserved carriage along with a few fat raindrops, and found himself face to face with Marco sitting on the opposite seat. 

A lot of the self-assurance was back, bringing with it more of a resemblance to Lucci, sitting there in his suit, although Lucci would not have crossed his legs in that fashion, would not have looked surprised at Kaku's mode of entrance, and would not have been busy painting his nails from a bottle labelled Orgasmic Crimson. 

Kaku had fortunately had the instinct to stuff his hands in his pockets. His own fingernails were red, and not with polish. 

"Ah, hello Marco. Settled down? Where's your mom? I mean, Mother?"

"Don't worry," said Marco with a sardonic smile. "She chased all the gofers out of 'our' carriage and then terrorized the train personnel until they turned out someone important to give her a sleeper cabin to herself. She's fine." 

"Oh good. Have you had a chance to get anything to eat? There should be-"

"You know something, Kaku?" interrupted Marco, doing the left ring fingernail with three deft strokes of the brush. "You're rather terrifying."

"Me? You think _I'm_ terrifying?" Kaku asked weakly, thinking back to a tea party with Rob Lucci on one side glaring murder at his twin brother smirking at him in a cocktail dress.

"Yes, I do." 

Kaku fished around his memory for anything scary he might have done in the past two hours. "Because I pulled rank on the Sergeant? He was out of order, trying to-"

"I didn't mean running off gorilla-boy." Marco's eyes were on Kaku in an unblinking scrutiny that was more familiar than it should be, considering the nail polish. "It's what might have happened to the monkey if me and Mother hadn't been there. It's what I suspect has just happened to the guy who stole our passes you seemed so interested in. And not forgetting the way everybody and his dog aboard this train jumps out of your way and you don't even notice. Now, don't get me wrong; we have one of those in the family. But you can see Lucci coming a mile away, whereas you...I've met you, talked with you, I'm for all intents and purposes your brother-in-law, my dear, and despite knowing damn well it was idiotic, a small part of me still stuck that 'cute, nice and fairly innocuous' label on you anyway and that's why, in this respect, you're scarier than that overbearing brother of mine."

There wasn't much to say to that which was why Kaku stood there in silence, bloodied hands in his pockets.

"And to top it off," Marco added wryly, tension breaking as he turned to the next nail, "I must tell you that not even Lucci has ever _dared_ talk to Mother that way."

"I find that hard to believe."

"Granted, he hasn't seen her since he was ten, but still-"

"Excuse me, Marco, I need to go freshen up."

Marco waved him away regally.

Kaku cleaned his hands in the small bathroom attached to the carriage and passed water over his face without looking himself in the mirror. It wasn't hard to pin down the source of his unease. The only ones who'd seen this side of him were his colleagues, a few select members of CP9's assisting staff, and his victims who, by the nature of their soon-to-be-deceased status, were perfectly justified in being frightened of him and also didn't count much. Marco was a civilian, someone unrelated to Kaku's work but who was nonetheless close (the word 'brother in law' kept bobbing up in Kaku's mind despite his best attempts to shove it down) and what Marco had seen in him bothered him more than it should.

But that just went with the territory. 

Kaku was back five minutes later, shaking his damp hands in the air rather than leaving pink stains on the towels Madame Rob might wish to use tomorrow morning. "Marco, I meant to tell you, there's a doctor on board."

"That's very kind of you, darling, but I'm sure my brother has already told you that I'm a pain that cannot be cured."

"Um, no, I meant for your mother."

"I'm afraid she'd quite incurable as well. Why do you think she needs a doctor?" Marco looked up curiously from the handheld mirror. He'd lined up tubes and bottles of cosmetics on the carriage's folding table and was busy applying the foundation of something undoubtedly magnificent.

"You mentioned she'd had an episode? Is something wrong with her heart...?"

"I'm the only one in our family in which that particular organ hasn't become somewhat atrophied, sweetie. The only thing wrong with Mother is that she doesn't realize that her power in high society is not enough to stop something as crass and mundane as a bullet. I had the misfortune to mention, while we were packing on Monday, how lucky we were to have connections who could get us out before the onslaught, and she spent all that night and Tuesday reminding me who she was, the careers in politics she'd broken and made, the lords, dukes and commanders who danced attendance at her parties and cowered before her, and how mere commoners should fear to even come near her."

Kaku had known Lucci a long time now, and he'd never seen the man show the slightest hint of class-consciousness beyond that which divided the world into Predator and Prey. Neither had Marco struck Kaku as...well, as anything other than Marco, which was quite a lot in itself but not something that Kaku related to gentry. Despite the occasional points of resemblance, there seemed to be a large gap between Mama Rob and her boys...Not for the first time, Kaku felt an urge to ask Marco about his and Lucci's father, but it felt disloyal to dig for intimate information behind his lover's back. Disloyal and possibly dangerous. 

"Your Mother is, um, quite..." 

"Formidable?" Marco suggested helpfully. "Exacting? Draconian? Emasculating?" 

"...Strong-willed." Kaku wondered if he'd ever have a conversation with his brother-in- with _Marco_ that would not leave him beachcombing the shores of embarrassment for shreds of composure.

"Oh yes, that she is. Mother, and Grandmamma before her, were powers behind the scenes in the rarefied upper spheres of society. She can murder a reputation with just one word and bury it so deep nobody will ever find it. She just refuses to believe this can't be applied to the real world, which is crude enough to insist on things like money. Mother despises money as the appanage of the nouveau riche. In Mother's world, real nobility owns a few ancestral acres and is otherwise genteelly broke. Lucci and I support her discreetly- oh yes, don't look surprised, Lucci pitches in too, though in his case it has flavors of paying off a blackmailer rather than filial piety. The change in world order and the new republic were a great blow to Mother. She's not recovered yet. It's just confirmed her in her opinion that the world is an unworthy heap of detritus that needs a firm disciplinarian hand. I think that's why she forgave Lucci for having the gall of becoming a civil servant. The fact that he does the government's dirty work doesn't bother her half as much as the fact he doesn't get invited to their parties, but at least he has the right attitude, in her mind. Though she does wish he could be a bit less sullen, and of course answer her letters without having to be nagged three times in a row."

"I suppose she doesn't approve of..." Kaku gestured towards a piece of turquoise chiffon that was peeping out of a travel case. 

"Oh, she puts up with that. Several branches of the family tree ended up with Lord Something or Other dressed in garters. She sees it as an inevitable if occasional side-effect of good breeding. Now, what she thinks of me taking that into _show business_ is another matter entirely. She swears Lucci and I are both trying to drive her to an early grave. Fortunately I've assured her that my reviews are of the utmost taste and class. She does grant me some self-assurance and good taste in clothing; god forbid a son of hers would be caught dead in chintz, or mixing carmine with burgundy."

"Of course," said Kaku, who thought the ebb of the conversation called for something like that. "Speaking of which, I noticed you're dressed-...differently."

"Well darling, have you ever tried talking your way through a cordon of jackboots in a dress?"

"No, I can't say I have."

"Then don't try it, handsome, even if you do have the legs for it. I thought it'd be easier like this, that I could persuade them I was Lucci's brother, but really it was a mistake. They weren't about to let us through, and if I'm going to be left behind to die in an island bombardment, I'm damn well going to do it in sequins."

"...I know it looked like a mess back there, but the government is evacuating everybody and they'll have finished before Blackbeard and his cohorts arrive."

"Of _course_ they will, sweetheart!" Marco exclaimed from behind the powder puff in a tone that suggested Kaku's touching naiveté and trust in the government's efficiency were necessary for the agent to do his job and thus Marco would never even _dream_ of dispelling them. An impression reinforced when Marco's next words were: "Oh, when we finally see him, be sure to tell my brother how _you_ were there to valiantly intervene with the authorities and save our lives." 

"I certainly will," said Kaku who, having a fear response on a far different scale than the rest of the populace, was indeed very curious to see the results. Lucci's reaction would be terribly interesting to watch. It might even be sarcastic. It could go all the way to annoyed. It was bound to make the post-mission blahs go away, at any rate. 

Those blahs never even had the time to settle in. At breakfast the next morning, a dining-car full of senior Marines and diplomats, treating the CP9 agent who did their dirty work with either fear, loathing or respect depending on their political stripe, all joined in gaped-jawed unison as Marco strode in, resplendent in heels, red organza and a feathered boa. Kaku nodded a greeting in return to the "Sweetheart! Who do I have to get you to murder to get a cup of coffee on this train?" and returned to his report (Marco could manage his own brand of bloodless intimidation to get breakfast). Life. It sure could get interesting.


End file.
